When using headphones with a portable electronic device, a user may find it cumbersome to control the device in certain situations. For instance, controls for the portable electronic device may not be accessible when, for example, the device is located within a user's pocket. To improve the accessibility of controls, some headphones include in-line media controls. Accessing these controls, however, often requires the user to find and manipulate buttons, knobs, or dials, which may be inconvenient and not necessarily intuitive. Moreover, these controls are often located on an additional component which may have a different form factor than the headphone cord. Accordingly, these, often bulky, components may not conform to the overall aesthetics of the headphone design.